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Another band of lake effect snow sweeps south across northern and Central New York

Lake Ontario snow 115 Thursday afternoon.jpg

Lake effect shown on a high resolution satellite image redeveloping over Jefferson County earlier Thursday afternoon. At this point, the band was producing heavy snow over northern Jefferson County.
(NOAA/NASA)

Early Thursday evening, a band of lake effect snow is over central Jefferson County. Earlier in the day, while the band was near Watertown visibility there was 1/8 to 1/4 mile from heavy snow.

Winds are currently from the west-southwest which is a classic wind direction for Jefferson County to get heavy snow. That is all about to change around midnight tonight.

Just after midnight, winds will start to shift to become more westerly. This means the lake effect will start to shift to the south and during the night, it will slowly sweep south over the counties east of Lake Ontario. On it's southward swing, the band of snow should lay down 8 to 18 inches of snow across Jefferson and Lewis Counties, and somewhat less over Oswego and Oneida Counties.

If the band moves slower than anticipated, snow totals could be more. Typically though, when bands are on the move, while they may be producing heavy snow, their residence time over any one location is less. Right now, it appears that from midnight on, the band will not be over any one location for more than four hours.

The band will keep moving.

The wind is forecast to become more northwesterly by sunrise. which will keep the band of snow marching to the south.

Between 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. Friday, the lake effect will have made it down to the Syracuse area. This is a couple of hours later than earlier expected. It will continue sweeping south and by mid morning, it will break up into small bands of snow in the Finger Lakes.

This means that Friday afternoon, much of Central New York will enjoy lots of sun in between snow showers.

This Weekend

We are still on tap for some widespread snow on Saturday.

Saturday morning, a low pressure tracking east from Kentucky will form a new storm just off the North Carolina coast. The storm will track northeastward into the Atlantic away from us Sunday morning.

The system should lay down around 3 to 6 inches of snow across much of Central New York Saturday through Sunday morning.

Some limited lake effect is possible in the wake of this Sunday afternoon.

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